


Big Mistake

by campylobacter



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Abortion, F/M, Miscarriage, Missing Scene, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-02
Updated: 2011-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 04:29:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/campylobacter/pseuds/campylobacter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scenes from Crusade, Prometheus Unbound, and Unending, connected by a subject women don't speak of in public. Written for the LiveJournal community one_prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Corned Piggot

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not gonna blame you if you don't read past the 1st sentence, refuse to comment, or leave me anonymous wank for this. THIS IS NOT FICTION FOR CHILDREN. The restricted rating isn't for porn or violence; it's for some heavily adult topics & women's issues. Un-beta'd because I started this 1 day before the deadline & published late. (For what it's worth, it does have a happy ending...)

[   
](http://campylobacter.livejournal.com/114844.html)

“I was pregnant once,” Denya said matter-of-factly to the striking brunette whom Tomin the Town Cripple had impulsively married. His new, foreign wife had swelled with child sooner than was proper after their nuptial ceremony, confirming the gossip that she wasn't as virtuous and gods-sent as she looked. The woman's condition reminded Denya of how calm, how triumphant she herself had been when announcing her pregnancy to Seevis. He'd no longer be able to sell her “virginity” to wealthy but gullible travelers if her appearance contradicted his sales pitch.

“Really?” Tomin's wife asked, interested but neither judgmental nor intrusive. Despite the possibility that the child wasn't even Tomin's, Denya felt she might trust her with a past sorrow, if not with the secret of the anti-Ori Underground.

\- - -

Seevis had looked momentarily surprised, but a condescending grin soon spread across his face. “Congratulations to you and the lucky young buck. Send me the dunning for your bridal attire, my dear.”

Denya chafed at the veiled mockery, predicated by his assumption that she had no idea who (of all the aging, overfed customers) the sire was, and that there were no suitors besotted enough to claim paternity – least of all Seevis, who more than once had availed himself of a panderer's perquisites. She looked down at the demure, girlish, linsey-woolsey frock whose seams were straining against her expanding breasts and belly. With forced flippancy and a toss of blonde ringlets she proclaimed, “I _am_ getting bored with this dress. A change would be welcome.”

“A new gown you shall have then.” He clapped lard-greased hands together with conviction. “And do let me treat you to a hearty bowl of corned piggot – you must fortify yourself in the coming months.”

The corned piggot tasted spicier than usual, to mask whatever had been added to induce excruciating cramps that night, and a pallet-full of blood in the morning. Seevis acted the very model of solicitous caregiver during the next four months of her agonizing recovery. During a lucid spell amidst the haze of her frequent fevers he admitted, “I think we– _I_ , made a big mistake.”

True to his word, he replaced her maiden's frock with a provocative gown cut from cloth woven for wealthy but neglected merchants' wives. And his manner towards her changed; no longer did he bother to coddle and cajole her into accepting clients, but allowed her to choose or decline whom she pleased, and actively sought her counsel in their endeavors against the Ori.

\- - -

Denya might trust Tomin's wife with her secret sorrow, but couldn't trust herself not to weep openly in confessing its details. “It didn't last long.”

Tomin's wife – Vala, her name was – seemed to understand with a compassion borne not of mere sympathy, but of similar experience: “Oh, I'm sorry.” She asked for no explanation, and steered the conversation in another direction. “Hey, I heard something really weird…”

“I promise you, I've heard it all.” The preposterous rumor of the “overcome” Ver Ager woman who'd been resurrected from death by a Prior only to be burned alive again had been retold with differing spins by Origin zealots and Underground conspirators alike.

“Well,” Vala began, “have you ever heard of someone getting pregnant without doing the deed?”


	2. Survival by Symbiont

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-extraction of Qetesh from Vala; missing scene & episode tag from "Prometheus Unbound"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part's much less triggery (unless techno-jargon squicks you) and borderline Gen.

“I regret that Camulus helped himself to the spoils of Qetesh's empire before I could use her sarcophagus to heal you.”

Vala didn't move her gaze from the wall behind the Tok'ra, afraid that the resentment she felt when looking directly at him meant that she was seeing him through Qetesh's eyes, despite witnessing the Goa'uld writhe in the light of day during the Extraction Ceremony several days earlier. “Yet you waited an entire month to rid me of that parasite.”

“Healing the fractured skull, concussion, shattered bones, internal bleeding, blindness, and ruptured organs your fellow villagers inflicted on you was beyond the power of this device.” He placed the black, half-ovoid ring on the little table next to her bed. “I had to let the symbiont bear the larger portion of healing you.”

“While you interrogated her.”

“Would you have failed to exploit the opportunity if it meant losing a foothold into Ba'al's upper echelons?”

Vala closed her eyes and pulled the blanket up to her chin. “Leave me be. I've had enough torture.” Not that she wasn't grateful for his continued efforts in using the device to erase the scars.

“I believe you are well enough now for solid food. I shall bring you breakfast an hour before sunrise.” His voice, though weary, carried a note of patient compassion. “Rest well, Vala Mal Doran. We must flee this planet tomorrow before Camulus' Jaffa discover our location – or your people's secret moon base.”

Later that night, she fled alone through the Stargate, taking with her the healing ring.

\- - -  


[](http://pics.livejournal.com/campylobacter/pic/0010q98f) [](http://pics.livejournal.com/campylobacter/pic/000qe239) [](http://pics.livejournal.com/campylobacter/pic/0010rpsw)

  
“Doct-- um, Daniel,” said Dr. Lindsey Novak, examining the pile of equipment and Kull armor the escaped prisoner had worn to pirate the Prometheus. “Is this the healing device?”

Daniel took the object from her hand and examined it closely for the first time. “Yep. It resembles another device SG-1 encountered about five years ago.” A bead of red at its center remained unlit in its powered-down state, and no amount of pushing or prodding would activate it. “Jack-- I mean, General O'Neill-- he was a Colonel at the time -- confiscated a similar ring from a man who ruled over a medieval village off-world. A cruel, twisted theocrat...” He suppressed a shudder at the memory of watching Teal'c being executed by drowning, with survival-by-symbiont the unexpected but welcome outcome. “The Canon used the ring to summon precision taser strikes from an aerial weapons platform. It packed one heck of a hangover.”

“Wow. Ouch.” She winced sympathetically. “Um, did the Canon have _naquadah_ in his bloodstream?”

“Well... not that we knew of at the time he used it. I think the device only powered up within range of the aerial weapon when a fingerprint scan unlocked it.”

General Hammond nodded in agreement. “I authorized Major Carter's request to have it sent to Area 51 for further study.”

Novak cocked her head in thought, puckering her mouth as a question formed. “So where did our pirate get a hold of this nifty little jewelry? And why does it heal when activated by naquadah instead of relaying the telemetry of a target via a fingerprint scan?”

Daniel shrugged in response. “Good question.”

“Dr. Novak,” Hammond remarked with amazement and pride, “your hiccups are gone.”

\- - -  


[](http://pics.livejournal.com/campylobacter/pic/001dwskg)

  
That night, the events of the day played hyper-actively through Daniel's mind, forcing him to summon his most soothing memory: “Go back to sleep,” Sha're whispered. “Tomorrow you will rise and return to your travels through the _Chappa'ai_.” But as he drifted between waking and sleeping, the memory of trying to physically subdue (without maiming) the woman in the Kull body suit turned into a dream of a tussle between her and his wife, until Sha're wrestled Vala onto her back, straddling her into submission. “Tell him how you willed his healing.”

“Please forgive me for doing you harm,” she whispered, turning eyes welled with tears towards him. “I truly would kiss it better if you'd let me.”

Daniel woke confused. The spot on his arm where Vala Mal Doran had burnt and then healed it, tingled with warmth.


	3. Proclaiming the Ephemeral Beauty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missing scene from "Unending".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions here of Jacek & Inago, not exactly the most wonderful characters you've ever met. Also, I'm using the DVD commentaries to interpret The Daniel/Vala Hurt/Comfort Scene in "Unending".

[ ](http://campylobacter.livejournal.com/115406.html)

“No matter how consistently Jacek betrayed your trust, I'm a poor substitute for your dad.” Landry snapped a pink flower from one of the fuzzy-leafed plants he called an African violet. “But as a dad who's all but lost a daughter because of this time-dilation bubble, I can understand some of your loss. And Dr. Jackson's.” He lifted Vala's limp hand and placed the flower on her palm. “Let Daniel comfort you. He blames himself, you blame yourself, but it's no one's fault. You need each other to get through this.”

In the light cast by full-spectrum fluorescent bulbs, the tiny bloom shimmered with a fine, velvety texture, its minuscule center of yellow nubs proclaiming the ephemeral beauty of fragile young life. She nodded, sighing, “I think we made a big mistake.”

Landry barely stopped a disappointed groan before Vala hastily added, “I mean, we shouldn't have agreed to never speak of it.”

He smiled sadly and gave her a reassuring hug before she rushed out of the greenhouse.

In the hours that followed, she and Daniel cried in each other's arms and shared past sorrows made less painful in comparison to their present one.

“Sha're couldn't conceive during my year with her on Abydos because I hadn't kept her in Ra's sarcophagus long enough.” Daniel held her tightly as she'd tucked her face into the crook of his neck; his breath at each word sank into her hair.

She turned her head so to speak, the taste of her tears and his skin still on her lips. “But you couldn’t have spared another moment if Jack had set a bomb to explode in seven minutes.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He stroked her back through the satiny fabric of her dressing jacket. “But if I'd taken the blast from Tomin's staff instead of you, maybe you wouldn't have miscarried.”

She dismissed the notion with a short chuckle. “Adria wouldn't have healed you.”

“I was wearing armor. You weren't.”

“You can keep trying to bear the guilt for this, but I assure you: your shortcomings do not include your reproductive skills.”

His sudden burst of laughter at her quip dislodged her from his lap, so they moved from the floor at the foot of the bed to a more comfortable arrangement under the covers.

“I was pregnant once, before Adria.” She spoke softly; it was a story she'd never told. “Inago never knew.”

He said nothing, and let her stay nestled into his side with an arm encircling her.

“I considered giving up the life of a free agent, but I was running two schemes at the time. I guess learning the symptoms of pregnancy served me well later, when the Ori dropped me into Ver Isca.” She snuggled closer to him, until she could hear his heartbeat. “Arlos's mother had a reputation for helping women 'resume their cycles', so to speak. I had to acquire a hyperdrive gauge mount to pay her.”

“So... stealing her necklace was 'change' for overpayment?”

“Steal? I didn't-- well, yes, I did.” Vala shrugged. “But I was doing her a favor; that dreadful necklace didn't match any of her outfits.”

Daniel's snort of laughter developed into a full-fledged belly laugh.

Vala laughed with him, even though it was more a release of stress than validation of her wit. As she drifted to sleep after their mirth subsided, she smiled and concluded that not all mistakes required regret, and that Daniel's laughter (a rare, wondrous sound) was as effective a healing device as she could ever wish.


End file.
